On 6 March 1988, three Irish Republican Army (IRA) members, Danny McCann, Sean Savage and Mairéad Farrell, were shot dead in Gibraltar. The programme examined the shootings and asked why there was no attempt by the Special Air Service (SAS) to arrest the IRA members.

The 50 Greatest Documentaries was a Channel 4 television programme which was broadcast on 9 October 2005 and was narrated by British actress, Zoë Wanamaker. The list was compiled based on the nominations submitted to Channel 4 by a series of factual filmmakers.

Films were ranked in a British public poll. That maybe explains some titles on this list.

Signs of the Times (1992) and An Impossible Job: Graham Taylor (1993) are missing from this list.